Miles Davis, and a piece of modernist furniture – So What!

Imagine yourself listening to this recording late at night, single malt in one hand, a finecigar in the other. If you had to pick a chair from the canon of 1950s classics to enjoy itfrom, which would it be? The answer is obvious. The only suitable luxury for such auraldelights is the Eames Lounge. But there is more uniting these two works of art thanimmediately meets the eye...or ear.

Kind of Blue is a monument to experiments in modal music. Modes were a way oflimiting the number of notes a musician could use; it is essentially the same basicharmonic structure as Gregorian chant. A stark contrast to the frantic, mathematicimprovisations of bebop and with the electronic fusion of the late 60s and 70s. Indeed,the album is arguably jazz at its purest moment, a time where what we hear is anorganic, faithful representation of what the musicians recorded, before the engineerstook over with their scissors a decade later.

The famous So What! 1959 video recording shows how Davis allows space between hisphrases. Davis' approach to improvisation on Kind of Blue as being 'economic' withsound. Whilst the Eames Lounge was historically expensive, it fits the criteria of themodern aesthetic because it is economic in style, like so many other classics from theperiod. The simplicity of its silhouette make it instantly recognizable, like Davis' mutedtrumpet.

But both the chair and the music defy any attempt to summarize it as neatly as I havejust attempted to do. The rich, dark colours of black leather and rosewood veneer arealmost an entire universe away from Saarinen's Pedestal breakthrough, which utilizescold plastic, aluminium and an upright sitting position. The Pedestal furniture is perhapsa more appropriate singular icon for modern design. Or is it? Charles and Ray's creationis hugely innovative, complex and time absorbing to assemble, and, it is luxurious. Thisis perhaps its most problematic feature; a chair intended not just for mere comfort, butan opulence of comfort. Designed to elevate the sitter's feat, supporting all parts of thebody; head, arms, back, shoulders.

In the same way, So What! also features the soloing of John Coltrane, whose style isabrasive to some, like the star shaped legs of the chair, and whose 'sheets of sound'approach to improvisation contrasts with Davis' 'less is more' philosophy. WhilstSaarinen achieved his goal of clearing the 'storm' of legs with his pedestal, adhering tothe modernist aesthetic of simplicity and unity of form, the Eameses' is almost a visionof American capitalist excess; leather, rosewood, steel. It suggests industrial success.Moreover, it has often been found sat in the offices and homes of wealthy businessmenand artists alike. It might not surprise us that Miles Davis himself owned an EamesLounge.

Thomas Hine, in a book celebrating 50 years of the Eames Lounge chair, writes achapter discussing sightings of the chair. The chair, and everything it symbolizes, has, inits relatively brief lifetime, permeated into the modern consciousness, much like the wayin which Davis' music crops up in Tom Cruise films, U2 lyrics and preachers' sermons.Both chair and album have a wider appeal than jazz buffs and modern design experts.Kind of Blue is both popular, being the most downloaded jazz album from iTunes, andheralded as a crucial point in Twentieth Century musical innovation. Design historianscanonize the chairs, and designers, of the decades preceding the 1950s as leadingtowards the ultimate; the Eames Lounge. Such a writing of history itself seems to beanti-modern.

It is the cultural conflict they both embody that gives them such wide appeal, and whythey both remain emblematic of the 1950s, and such evocative forces today.